


Loving Cup

by imaginary_golux



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Accidental Marriage, F/M, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 00:02:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13601280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: The junior priestess perhaps should have been a little more specific as to which of the distinguished guests should drink from the ceremonial goblet.Beta by my lovely Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.





	Loving Cup

“Did you... _all_...drink from the loving cup?” the junior priestess asks, eyes wide.

“Yes,” Arthur says, frowning. “Was that incorrect?”

“ _Loving_ cup?” Lancelot mutters, behind him, and Guinevere makes a little noise of confusion.

“Er,” says the junior priestess, “not...ah...not precisely _incorrect_ , Majesty,” and hurries away to a more senior priestess, with whom she holds a hushed and hasty conversation. The more senior priestess _also_ frowns and summons a yet _more_ senior priestess, and so on until at last the High Priestess herself comes down with measured grace from her high seat to hear the junior priestess’s explanation. She listens gravely, nods, and proceeds across the grass to where Arthur and Guinevere and Lancelot are waiting impatiently.

“Sire,” she says, nodding to Arthur - a High Priestess in her own shrine does not bow to _anyone_. Arthur nods back just as deeply. “Daughter. Sir knight. Be welcome here; no harm shall come to you within the bounds of this shrine.”

“Thank you, gracious lady,” Arthur says, as politely as he can. “Yet I fear me some harm has already come; why else is there such dismay that we have all drunk from this goblet?”

“As to that,” the High Priestess says, “it is not _harm_ that it has done you. It is that those who drink from the loving cup before the shrine are bound forever in the eyes of the gods.”

Arthur’s eyebrows go up. Guinevere’s hand on his tightens hard enough to bruise. Lancelot makes a noise of sheer baffled incredulity. Arthur turns the words over in his head a couple of times, trying to make them mean anything other than the obvious, and then says carefully, “As in a marriage?”

“Precisely,” the High Priestess says. “This has...caused some consternation, as you have seen, because it has changed the paths of your destiny.”

Arthur blinks. “It...has?” It’s _startling_ , certainly, but the more he thinks about it the less he has any particular _objection_ to having his best knight and dearest friend be part of his marriage to Guinevere. It simplifies things, actually. He’s not actually blind to the way they look at each other, he’s just been ignoring it so he doesn’t have to officially _notice_ that his wife and his best friend are in love with each other. He knows they both love him _too_ , and he’s been...carefully avoiding having to deal with it. But if it’s official - if a High Priestess has said that they are married - actually that makes _many_ things easier.

“Yes,” the High Priestess says, drawing Arthur’s attention back to her. “It has.”

Arthur waits, but the High Priestess just smiles enigmatically at him. _Mystics_.

“How?” Guinevere asks finally.

“For the better, in many respects,” the High Priestess says, smiling a little more broadly. “My sincere congratulations on your bonding, sire.”

*

Arthur announces the marriage - and his joy in it - as soon as they make it back to court, and takes careful note of the way Sir Agravaine looks suddenly _extremely_ unhappy. Well, so that’s the way the wind was blowing.

*

Somewhere very far away, Nimue and Merlin look down at the scrying pool together, and then turn to each other in bafflement. “That...is not the way the legend _usually_ goes,” Merlin says slowly.

“No,” Nimue says. “No, that’s a new variation. Um. Now what?”

“You know,” Merlin says, “I am honestly not sure. How exciting!”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 6 of the February Ficlet Challenge.
> 
> I am imaginarygolux on tumblr; drop on by!


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